We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, February 20, 2021

  • Dr. Cornel West Is A Free Man featuring West along with Jimmy Dore from the latter's channel on Rokfin. (Note: Listen to the 10:12m video to find out what the title means, and other insights.)
  • Role of NGOs in Promoting Neo-Colonialism by Syed Ehtisham from CounterCurrents. (Note: Read this to find out about NGOs. They can be used for good or for evil. The US/Anglo/Zionist Empire often uses them for subversion of nations that they do not like. This report offers extensive documentation.)
... the past that Klaus Schwab has worked to hide is explored in detail, revealing the involvement of the Schwab family, not only in the Nazi quest for an atomic bomb, but apartheid South Africa’s illegal nuclear programme. Especially revealing is the history of Klaus’ father, Eugen Schwab, who led the Nazi-supported German branch of a Swiss engineering firm into the war as a prominent military contractor. That company, Escher-Wyss, would use slave labor to produce machinery critical to the Nazi war effort as well as the Nazi’s effort to produce heavy water for its nuclear program. Years later, at the same company, a young Klaus Schwab served on the board of directors when the decision was made to furnish the racist apartheid regime of South Africa with the necessary equipment to further its quest to become a nuclear power.
In a society that maintains the illusion of freedom in order to prevent outrage and revolution, it does not serve rulers to stifle all dissent. Just the opposite in fact: their interests are served by having a small number of dissidents hanging around the fringes of society creating the illusion of freedom. If Johnny Hempshirt over there is allowed to stand on a soapbox and criticize the US war machine, then the US must be a free country.

So they don’t work to silence all dissent. What they do is work to make sure that dissent never hits a critical mass and goes mainstream.
My commentary follows:
This grabbed my attention because I don't see my lifetime of telling the truth (as I see it) has done much good. The capitalist ruling class has to maintain the illusion of freedom and "democracy" by keeping dissidents marginalized to the numerical fringes of acceptable debate. That way they can "eat their cake, and have it too", that is, they can preserve their propaganda about freedom and democracy, and at the same time, manage their self-serving rule.
 
I was only once asked, and this was in person, how I had permitted to write such vigorous criticism about the rule of capitalism. I answered that it didn't matter to the ruling class if a few voices criticized the social-political arrangements under their rule because it was permitted only to a few dissidents in order to maintain the illusion of democracy and civil rights. However, I've noticed in the last several years that I don't see any of my posts go viral, but I occasionally did before there was a concerted effort to marginalize dissident voices. I agree with Johnstone--they are only worried about numbers of dissidents.
 
I don't share her optimism that eventually things will change. I'm particularly concerned about the word "eventually"--that is, if we had enough time, we might eliminate the ruling capitalist class. I don't think we human animals have much time left on planet Earth before we also become extinct after our (I hold the capitalist classes primarily responsible) destabilization of the climate really sets in. I think we have devoted too (def #2) much time to ancient religions which erroneously put us in the center of the universe. We have failed to recognize that we are a part of the web of life on planet Earth. In the meantime, I and other dissidents will continue our work to tell the truth about our ruling class and the system which serves them with so much wealth and power.
However, I think we should also accept our ultimate defeat. Our masters in the ruling class (I hold upper-middle-class workers and their self-centered concerns primarily responsible) have been much too clever with their control of information. Unfortunately, we human animals can't seem to overcome the weakness of our species' Achilles heel, that is, the devotion to ourselves and our families; and instead with a class consciousness, a dedication to overcoming our subservience to a ruling class. Perhaps Margaret Thatcher was right when she said "there was no such thing as society, there were only individuals and their families".
  • The Nature of Money by M.K. Anderson from Current Affairs. My reaction: The author is an accountant and his closing comments reflect his views on the use of money in our existing capitalist societies:
... it’s a tool used to describe workers with the goal of extracting wealth and labor from them. It is an incredibly poor tool for holding the wealthy accountable, and so we will have to come up with other methods.
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